He’d remember the laughter in Mick’s eyes, and how it had switched over, in a flash, to alarm.
He’d turned, rounded on the balls of his feet, one hand digging out the weapon. Fast. Christ, he’d always been fast.
But this time, this one time, not fast enough.
Gerade had the knife at waist level, the blade a hard glint in the brilliant lights. His eyes were wild, mad, terrified. Roarke heard Eve shout, saw the stream from her weapon hit. Even that, too late.
At the same instant Mick leaped in front of him, and took the knife in the belly.
“Well, hell.” Mick sent Roarke a bemused look as he went down.
“Ah, no.” Roarke was on his knees, pressing a hand to the wound. Kill blood, deep and dark, gushed through his fingers.
“Little fucker,” Mick managed through hideous waves of pain. “I never gave him the guts for it. Never knew he was carrying. How bad he get me?”
“Not so bad.”
“Damn, you used to be handier with a lie.”
“I need an ambulance, surgical MTs.” Eve rushed over, took stock, and continued to shout into her communicator. “I’ve got a man down. Knife wound to the belly. Get me medical assistance in here.”
Then she stripped off her shirt without a thought, and tossed it to Roarke so he could staunch the wound.
“Now, that was a pretty thing to do.” Mick’s face had already gone from white to gray. “Am I forgiven then, Eve darling?”
“Stay quiet.” She crouched down to check his pulse. “Help’s on the way.”
“I owed him that, you know.” Mick shifted his eyes to Roarke. “I owed you that, though I didn’t expect to pay so dear. Christ, doesn’t anybody have any fucking drugs for a man?” He fumbled out, gripped Roarke’s hand desperately. “Hold onto me, won’t you? There’s a lad.”
“You’ll be all right.” Roarke squeezed as if he could make it so by will alone. “You’ll come round.”
“You know I’m done.” A trickle of blood bubbled through his lips. “You got my signals, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I got them.”
“Just like old times. Do you remember . . .” He moaned, had to fight for a breath. “When we took the mayor’s house in London, cleaning out his parlor while he was upstairs ramming it to his mistress while his wife was visiting her sister in Bath?”
He couldn’t stop the blood. Couldn’t hold back the stream of it. He could smell death creeping close, and could only pray Mick could not. “I remember you snuck up the stairs and took videos of it with his own bloody camera. And later we sold them back to him, and fenced the camera as well.”
“Aye, aye, those were good times. Happiest of my life. Jesus, what a flaming shame it is that my mother, bless her black heart, should be right after all. At least I got the knife in my belly in a fine hotel and not a second-rate pub.”
“Quiet, Mick, the MTs are coming.”
“Oh, screw ’em.” He sighed hugely, and for one moment his eyes were clear as crystal. “Will you light a candle for me in St. Pat’s?”
Roarke’s throat wanted to close, his mind to reject. But he nodded. “Aye.”
“That’s something then. Roarke, you were ever a true friend to me. It’s happy I am for you that you found that one thing. See that you keep hold of it. Slan.”
And turning his face to the side, he was gone.
“Ah, God.” Helpless sorrow flooded over him, into him. He could do nothing but rock, his bloody hand clinging to Mick’s while the sorrow drowned him. His eyes were stark, naked with it when they lifted to Eve’s.
While the business of law went on around them, she rose, signaled her men and the MTs who rushed into the room back. And went to her husband. Kneeling with him, she put her arms around him, drew him in.
Roarke laid his head on his wife’s breast, and grieved.
He was alone with his thoughts when dawn broke. From the window of his bedroom, he watched day tremble into life and whisk away the dark, layer by thin layer.